Alabama Tides

We are now in Robertsdale, Alabama at the Hilltop RV Park. Nothing special here but it was more or less in between Mobile, Gulf Shores and Pensacola so it seemed like a good jumping off point for a few days of touring Alabama.

Hello Mississippi...Bye Mississippi

 We had some pretty heavy rains last night and north of here were some tornado's with fatalities. Jeez...didn't anyone tell Alabama it's January? Not tornado season in our neck of the woods! This morning was warm and damp but by the time we left about 10 the clouds were breaking up. We drove south to Gulf Shores, huge tourist/spring break destination. The town was typical shore tourist shops (which we have seen and had enough of) but the beach....ahh the beach...was gorgeous. White sand, clean, emerald water, bare-chested old men! All the makings of paradise.

We walked the beach awhile and even stopped in one "souvenir" shop, but quickly left in favor of more sun and sand. It was about 80 and very humid. If we had our suits and towels we could have easily sat for a good long while and worked on our tans. Bad hair day, though. The sticky air pretty quickly mad a mess of my carefully coiffed head...

After our walk, we (Jeff) decided to get some lunch at the closest place to the beach, a joint called The Hangout. Very cute beach bar, great Chicken Sandwiches!

Next we drove the length of the gulf drive that lead to the Ferry to Dauphin Island but on arrival at the ferry landing we found out it doesn't run with the frequency we expected. There would be an hour wait and a $16 fee. Back to Gulf Shores we went! We spent the rest of the afternoon pretty much driving around the area as the weather turned nasty as quickly as it had turned nice and neither of us had any desire to walk the beaches in the rain. We did stop in at a pub called Lulu's, mainly because of my best buddy, Lucy. The owner is actually Lucy Buffet, as in Jimmy's sister. They had a beer and a cookbook called "Crazy Sister", so I guess we know how that sibling relationship is!

Lulu's on a sunny day would be heaven...
sand, beach chairs, toys for the kids and
building sand castles!

Had a drink while huddling under the canopy of the Marina side deck. It was a deluge and we were stuck for a bit (but not a bad place to be stuck). Had a bit of a drive back and on the way saw a fast food chicken place with a sign out front stating "Fried Pickles Are Back!!!" Nothing, and I mean NOTHING (except Deep Fried Cheeses Curds) are better than fried pickles so we went through the drive-thru for a small order to share. Yum Yum!

So Alabama gets a four-star rating for great beaches and Fried Pickles, neither of which you will ever find in Minnesota!